“I had a white suit made in 1960, started wearing it in January – and found it annoyed people tremendously. It’s kind of a harmless form of aggression.” Tom Wolfe

Run, Rudy, Run

The media, both right and left, are shocked and speechless that Rudy Giuliani, who hasn’t even announced that he would run for president, is leading all the other Republican candidates, according to a CNN poll.

I’m delighted Rudy may get in the race. I was for him in 2008 and I’d vote for him in 2012 if given the opportunity.

Why? He’s the only American politician on any level since perhaps Reagan (and Truman before that) who can point to a real, tangible achievement: the salvation of America’s greatest city which, before his tenure as mayor, was on the way to becoming what Detroit is today.

I spend a lot of time in New York, and I particularly love Central Park which I think is one of the jewels of Western civilization. I remember what the park was before Rudy – a place you entered at your peril. Vagrant lunatics and criminals looking for prey owned Central Park in those days, but not today. They owned the subway and the streets as well, but not today. The current mayor is merely resting on Rudy’s laurels in my opinion.

How did he do it? New Yorkers and visitors can thank Rudy for standing up to the most aggressive bunch of liberal activists in Christendom. He stared them down and they blinked; thus, he was re-elected by probably the most dedicated Democratic electorate in the country.

He bungled the last election’s GOP primaries by not campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire and putting all his eggs in the Florida basket.

Perhaps he’s too liberal for Republican primary voters on social issues like gays and abortion, but I don’t think 2008 proved anything about his electability. So Run, Rudy, Run!

Speaking of New York, former schools’ chancellor and educational “miracle worker” Joel Klein and the credulous fools who believe his claims of having turned the schools around need to be held accountable (but won’t) for the following:

The e-mail box runneth over with bad tidings. Teachers are reporting that cheating is rampant in New York City schools — and they claim principals are the culprits.

The reports are responding to my column that many schools are denying students the freedom to fail in a misguided bid to help them. To judge from the response, the problem is worse than I feared. Much worse.

First, a professional in a Manhattan high school wrote to say that teachers in her school are “encouraged” to pass 80 percent of students, no matter their grades or attendance. She offered student writing samples filled with glaring errors of spelling and grammar to prove that “social promotion is alive and well.”

Now others are revealing shocking examples from their schools about how unprepared kids are being pushed along to the next grade and out the door with a sham diploma. Their disheartening tales deserve attention.

“Our mandated passing rate is 60 percent,” one wrote. “We need to explain in detail why this student failed, what methods were used to get him to pass, how much home contact was made.

“The one group that is not called in for interrogation is the students themselves. No blame falls on them . . . The students know what is going on. It has empowered them to feel that they can work less or not at all and still pass the class.”

Another, from a Brooklyn high school, says the principal fudges attendance and grades with a warning that unless the school improves, the Department of Education will close it and teachers will lose their jobs.

“The administration allows students to run around, go to class for 5 minutes, and we must mark them present,” he wrote. “We are also encouraged to change attendance of students marked absent up to 2 weeks earlier, looking for ‘proof’ they are absent. So teachers just give up and mark them present.”

He added, “Teachers are scared into passing students that do not deserve it.”…

There’s a lot more. Read the entire column and weep. Another bi-partisan pipe dream up in smoke. But one thing is for sure: They will never admit they were wrong.